You make me feel like I'm a boy (and not a man)
by ibuzoo
Summary: Tom's fingers dig contusions in his wrists and Hermes traces their shape on the mirror, while they're already fading violet and rose in his white skin, realizing that they look like flower petals. (it is difficult, exhausting to be someone you are not and it feels a lot like a martyrdom that he can't be what Tom wants him to be)


**You make me feel like i'm a boy (and not a man)**

**Prompt: **Bruises

**Rating: **M

**Warnings: **Genderbend AU / Modern AU / College AU / Bruises and Contusions

**Word count: **1518

**Summary: **Tom's fingers dig contusions in his wrists and Hermes traces their shape on the mirror, while they're already fading violet and rose in his white skin, realizing that they look like flower petals.

_(it is difficult, exhausting to be someone you are not and it feels a lot like a martyrdom that he can't be what Tom wants him to be)_

**A/N:** Internet Rule 63.2. For every female character there is a male version. I don't know if there's another Genderbend Fic in this fandom, but I thought I'd give it a try - after all I wrote so many different AU's that i can't lack a Genderbend one. Just Hermione is genderbend in this one, and the messages on her (or his) skin are the bruises that Tom leaves. It's not really about sexuality in this drabble, i guess one has to read it to get what i want to express.

**Disclaimer: **This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros. Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

* * *

**o.**

There are bruises on his skin and he counts the days until they fade again.

**i.**

_(when his eyes rest on Tom's handsome face for the first time, his bones feel strangely heavy, like chains to the floor and he can't move even if he tries)_

**ii.**

Hermes has always been different than most boys in his classes. He didn't wear trainers that were scuffed and dingy from hours of practice in muddy fields or grasslands, neither was his body tall and strong like all of the young men that got away with the bruises on their knuckles from the blood on his jawline.

He comes home with purple and black ornaments on his far-too fair skin and wears the wounds as the price he pays for his brilliance, a reminder that his sharp tongue and slender frame was a threat to their presence, an insult.

He grows older and smarter into slender bones and lean skin and sometimes he hates that biology denies him the body of a soldier or an athlete but instead, cultivates his mind into something that reaches for stars in a world full of dust.

He was born to scholars which will hug him tightly, telling him to keep his chin high and his head down, parents who appreciate the fact that their son was miles and mountains above his competition, but they would never see the way he'd cover up the marks and scratches on his skin.

He wonders if anyone would care at all if he had been born as a girl.

**iii.**

He's seventeen when he meets Abraxas Malfoy, heir of the Malfoy imperium and it's the first time he feels almost welcome, as if someone really makes an effort to befriend him and not just wants the homework of next week or the thesis for his finals.

_(there's something dangerous glistening in Abraxas eyes, something that tells him there's _another_ reason he needs his mind as well, but Hermes ignores it bluntly)_

Abraxas drags him across half of London to introduce him to a group of friends, which seem all too eager to meet him and it's easy for Hermes to fall in this secret circle and their shady business. There's a voice in his head, his moral compass that tells him that this isn't the way to use his talent for greater good, but there's another voice in the back of his mind reminding him, that this could be the only chance he gets.

And he's determined to use it.

**iv.**

It lasts some weeks until Abraxas deems him worthy enough, remunerative enough to meet their master and he's ready to crash any doubt that's still in their heads. He's prepared to see the wariness in Tom's eyes, but all he finds is calculated fascination verging on appraisal. When their eyes met, Hermes feels like his bones and flesh are part of a geomagnetic pole and Tom's the other half, circling him but never touching.

_(but he does, later, shoves him hard on the shoulder to push him out of the door when they leave, and Hermes can feel the skin bruising in the shape of Tom's hand)_

**v.**

He thinks it's a one time thing, the touching, because Tom didn't seem to be the kind of guy who deals with contact a lot, but it happens again, a week after when he's sitting right next to Mulciber and they're discussing about the new hacking app they'll write this weekend. Tom's asking something right beside him, but Hermes doesn't look up, still answers while his eyes are still tacked on the notebook with Mulciber's scrawl and that's the mistake right away. Suddenly Tom's fingertips press in the flesh of his chin and jawline, yank his face around at a speed that his neck gives a creaking sound and he forces him to look up in grey eyes, repeat his words.

Tom drops his hand a second after, retracts it as if he burned himself and vanishes trough the open door.

_(he feels the touch linger for hours and the bruises on his chin last for nearly a week but Hermes doesn't care)_

**vi.**

_(he doesn't care at all)_

**_vii._**

"If you were a woman," Bellatrix says, one night when they're still in the library with cups of perfectly strong Starbucks coffee and the only sound are her heels that click softly on the old wooden floor while her smile is warm and friendly, and she continues, "I think Tom would accept what's going on between the two of you."

_If you were a woman_, she doesn't say but it sways in her words, the tone of her voice nearly screaming in his face, _he would want you._

She looks at him with a predatory look in her eyes and her laugh is high but warm and she means nothing by it when she says that any woman would be jealous of his eyelashes or his perfect marble skin and it grates his nerves like fingernails down a chalkboard, so Hermes breathes in deep, then out again.

"If I were a woman," he says at last, as he runs his finger trough his short cut curls and looks up from the book straight into her eyes, "I'm sure I'd would have better taste."

_(Bellatrix looks at him with a mixture of confusion and pity and it makes him feel worse)_

**viii.**

Tom's fingers dig contusions in his wrists and Hermes traces their shape on the mirror, while they're already fading violet and rose in his white skin, realizing that they look like flower petals.

_(it is difficult, exhausting to be someone you are not and it feels a lot like a martyrdom that he can't be what Tom wants him to be)_

**ix.**

"There's a bet going around," Abraxas tells him, leans against the desk right beside him and flips trough his books, nonchalantly, "about whether or not you're still a virgin."

"So we're children then?" Hermes asks and although he keeps focused on his work while he feels Abraxas' eyes digging holes in his shoulder, he continues, a tad bugged, "is there anything else?"

There's a moment of silence and he sees the way Abraxas eyes drop to his wrist, his upper arm where silent bruises still narrate Tom's story. He wets his lips and says, cautiously, "Listen, about Tom-" But Hermes interrupts him, cuts him off mid-sentence and gestures to the books right before him, the plans for their next business. "I have work to do. Could this possibly wait for a better time?"

_Perhaps never_, he added in his mind and Abraxas seems to get it, nods and stays silent, which he supposes is an answer itself.

**x.**

There are hands gripping his waist right to the bones and something flares in his own eyes, something wild that wants the key to the cage and the other hand grips him by the shoulders, wrenches him around and all Hermes wants is to bring that bristly mouth to his own and wait for Tom to blow scars down his sore throat until he's bursting from pain.

But Tom does no such thing, just grips his flesh harder and harder until his skin nearly breaks. Then he drops his hand and leaves.

The mark, this time, is red and swollen and Hermes knows it will last longer than usual.

_(the bruise, he persuades himself, has the shape of a T)_

**xi.**

_(how long will they trade radical bruises while he stares at Toms mouth and wonders what it tastes like?)_

**xii.**

"I am not a woman." His voice staggers a moment, insecurity swaying in every word because everything about this arrogant boy, man, makes him weak and nervous.

Tom moves closer, his steps carefully calculated and his face remains stoic when he breathes out, pressed, "I know." He launches forward and grabs Hermes wrist again, neither gentle not careful and he feels the pain flaring up under nearly completely healed contusions that faded into his skin some days ago.

They don't speak another word and Tom lifts his hand to lay it on Hermes neck without hesitation, the slender fingers curling around his cervical muscles and Hermes swallows, perceives how it's harder to breath but he doesn't recoil. It's frustrating that his common sense seems non-existent and his mind emboldens him to spin this dance of death while he knows exactly how this man operates, knows the bodies left in his path. It is frustrating because his body and his mind are not on the same wavelength at all, are perhaps no longer even occupying the same vessel but there's something about the way Toms hand holds onto his neck and squeezes that sets his pulse racing.

_(he wonders how long they'll last this time)_

**xiii.**

If anyone notices the new bruises on his neck in the shape of their Dark Mark, no one comments on it.

No one dares anymore.

**xiv.**

There are bruises on his skin and he counts the days until they fade again.

**xv.**

_(he wishes they wouldn't fade anymore)_


End file.
